The dust had not yet settled on the federal stimulus debate when Gov. Rendell said yesterday that Pennsylvania had escaped disaster.
In fact, Rendell said, the state will get almost the full $5 billion he was seeking in budget aid over three years.
“No major damage was done to us,” Rendell told [...]
His Face was as gray as his suit.
And, yesterday, the man who was once arguably the most powerful politician in the state became prey, trapped by his own words, after years of dogged law-enforcement pursuit.
Former state Sen. Vincent Fumo was cornered on the witness stand all day, confronted with damning [...]
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board is ignoring state gambling law by allowing former employees to work for casinos, House Republicans charged Thursday.
The lawmakers said they want to end a “revolving door” of lawyers and board members leaving the board’s employment to work for firms that represent casinos. At least four [...]
Hi everyone,
We’re going to be making some changes to Keystone Politics over the weekend and I want to give you a heads up about what to expect.
You’ll have to create a new account in our new system. We’re going to make it as easy as possible by letting you login [...]Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo acknowledged yesterday under aggressive cross-examination that his staff did campaign work in his South Philadelphia district office and that he was “probably wrong” to have allowed that.
“It’s also a violation to spit on the sidewalk, but I don’t know that it’s enforced,” said [...]
The economic stimulus deal reached Wednesday would leave a hole of several hundred million dollars in Gov. Ed Rendell’s 2009-10 budget proposal, even while pumping billions of dollars into Pennsylvania for infrastructure repairs, expanded unemployment benefits, health coverage and tax credits.
Despite pleas from Rendell and other governors, the measure [...]
While asking business leaders yesterday to help the city pull through its current fiscal crisis, Mayor Nutter promised something in return: another whack at overhauling the city’s tax system.
“Our tax structure is onerous, cumbersome and burdensome,” Nutter said just before announcing that he would establish a mayoral task force on [...]
The Senate on Tuesday passed an enormous economic stimulus bill that could strip cash-strapped Pennsylvania of $500 million in aid while giving hundreds of billions of dollars to small towns for long-awaited construction projects.
The $838 billion bill passed 61-37, with support from Republican Sens. Arlen Specter of Philadelphia and Olympia [...]
A state lawmaker said Tuesday she wants to eliminate tax breaks for the film production industry as the General Assembly seeks ways to close a $2.3 billion budget deficit.
“The governor is freezing wages and considering layoffs of state workers, and it would be unconscionable in this environment to continue awarding [...]
Most school districts in Pennsylvania lack basic resources to provide a quality education to children with disabilities, according to a report Maritz and other officials will discuss today.
Commissioned by The Arc of Pennsylvania, the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania and the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania, the report provides a [...]
In the most recent issue of the Green Party’s national publication, called The Green Pages, two feature articles looked at Pennsylvania politics. One looked at the Ballot Access Coalition and the other was about Bonusgate, in which Democratic officials have been indicted for conspiring to take independent presidential candidate Ralph [...]
City Council members yesterday learned of the real-life consequences of cutting city department budgets as much as 30 percent, at least as the Nutter administration sees them.
Take away 10 percent of the Fire Department’s budget, and you lose three engine and two ladder companies, and three medic units – [...]
Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo took jurors in his federal corruption trial through an odyssey of denials yesterday as he insisted that his Senate aides and high-priced consultants had worked more than enough hours to justify their pay.
He denied that his son-in-law had spent Senate time overseeing renovations [...]
U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter has never been the darling of fiscal conservatives, but after emerging as a key Republican enabler of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, his face may be on their dartboards.
Specter’s willingness to work in recent days with the new Democratic president, not surprisingly, is winning him [...]
Pennsylvania’s cash-strapped college students need help paying their tuition bills, as Gov. Ed Rendell sees it, and he is asking state lawmakers to deliver relief quickly by legalizing and taxing video poker playing.
It took lawmakers about 18 months into Rendell’s first term to legalize slot machine gambling for school property-tax [...]
Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have primary seat-belt enforcement laws, meaning police can stop vehicles for a seat belt violations, even if it is the only violation the officers notice.
“Why do you need another offense to stop someone for failing to use a seat belt when it’s the [...]
Gov. Rendell is scheduled to be the first witness this morning in the federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo.
And then Fumo may take the stand.
Rendell is being called as a defense witness, and a spokesman said on Friday that Rendell is due to arrive at 10:30 [...]
Zoos and children’s museums. American battle monuments overseas. Civil Air Patrol search-and-rescue missions. A registered nurse who teaches Amish schoolchildren about farm safety.
All are victims of the budgetary ax Gov. Rendell wielded while crafting his proposed $29 billion budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year. The cuts, many affecting the Philadelphia [...]
The Republican State Committee voted overwhelmingly Saturday to endorse veteran Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin for nomination to Pennsylvania’s highest court.
But all three of the other candidates vowed to contest the May 19 primary despite a call by party leaders for unity at a time when the state GOP [...]
By state Reps. Bryan Lentz and Matt Smith
“You must not fight simply to win; no holds barred is not the way; you must win by the rules.”
So say the Marquess of Queensberry rules of boxing written in England in the 18th century. In the Pennsylvania legislature, when it comes to [...]
Retailers are seeing red over Gov. Ed Rendell’s twin budget proposal to allow counties to tack on an extra 1 percent to the state’s 6 percent sales tax, while eliminating the retailers’ 1 percent sales tax collection allowance.
The timing couldn’t be worse, said Brian A. Rider, president of the Pennsylvania [...]
Inmates who committed crimes from burglary to murder pay token amounts for health care and have access to wide meal variety and reduced-price snacks from the commissary, a union representing prison workers told the Rendell administration.
As the state seeks to cut costs, with threatened furloughs of government workers included, Gov. [...]
The cards have been dealt to Superior Court to decide whether Texas Hold ‘em poker tournaments are unlawful gambling under Pennsylvania law.
Last month, Columbia County Judge Thomas James upped the ante in the debate by issuing a ruling that explored the dynamics of poker. James determined poker was exempt from [...]
Gov. Rendell proposed a $29 billion budget yesterday that relies on a major infusion of federal aid to plug a growing deficit and afford a modest spending increase overall.
But the budget, austere compared with previous Rendell budgets, also includes the “painful” cuts that the governor has proposed to hundreds [...]
The 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education would get their funding cuts from this fiscal year restored under Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed budget for 2009-10. But the governor is holding back on restoring funds at Penn State and the three other state-related universities.
It’s the second [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell, who has made education reform a cornerstone of his administration, wants to eliminate 400 of the state’s 501 school districts as a way to streamline operations and save taxpayers money.
If the measure goes through, it would be the first state-forced consolidation since 1962, when the number [...]
There’s a lot of sensible things here.
Most of Mr. Rendell’s budget initiatives have been previously unveiled, but one controversial proposal involves a first step toward sharply reducing the number of state school districts.
He wants the General Assembly to form a commission “with the goal of reducing the number of [...]
There’s a new celebrity name being dropped among Democrats discussing next year’s US Senate race in Pennsylvania .
Pennsylvania Democratic party chairman T.J. Rooney emphasizes that he hasn’t had a conversation with the former Steelers Hall of Famer, but says there’s buzz among the movers and shakers of the party about [...]
In a proposal that was met with instant criticism across the Capitol, the Rendell administration said yesterday it wanted to legalize video-poker machines at restaurants, private clubs and corner bars to help Pennsylvania students pay for college.
Rendell will ask the legislature to approve the video-poker legislation – the first expansion [...]
York County resident Tom Wolf, a presumed Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania governor, said today he will not run for the office.
In November, Wolf stepped down as Pennsylvania secretary of revenue. Last month, he filed the paperwork with the Pennsylvania Department of State that authorized him to begin raising funds [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell was subpoenaed Monday to testify at the federal criminal trial of a former state senator accused of misusing millions that belonged to the state, a maritime museum and a nonprofit community group.
Rendell does not plan to contest the subpoena for him to appear next Monday at [...]
If the Democratic primary for Philadelphia district attorney were decided on campaign contributions alone, Dan McCaffrey would be running away with the race.
McCaffrey, a former assistant district attorney and brother of state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffrey, reported a campaign treasury of $243,000 at the end of the year – [...]
The deteriorating economy continues to drive Pennsylvania’s revenue collections farther below expectations.
The state Revenue Department said Monday that Pennsylvania collected about $260 million less than expected in January. Collections through the first seven months of the fiscal year are $13.3 billion, or $1.1 billion below estimate.
Gov. Ed Rendell said he [...]
Attending a state-owned university or community college in Pennsylvania could be nearly free for low-income students under a proposal Gov. Ed Rendell is expected to unveil this week.
Rendell wants to set aside $128 million to boost state grants for freshmen entering one of the 14 universities in the State System [...]
Jack Panella, a state Superior Court judge from Northampton County, was endorsed today for the Democratic nomination for an open seat on the state Supreme Court.
A second candidate, Philadelphia Judge Teresa Sarmina, abandoned her plan to ask the Democratic State Committee to stay neutral in the race and did not [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposal to lay off up to 2,000 state workers in response to a projected $2.3 billion budget deficit is a ruse to buy support for new taxes, a Republican lawmaker charged Friday.
Instead, said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, the state could shift $1 billion from welfare spending [...]
As the nation’s economy was plodding and layoffs were accelerating last summer, Pennsylvania state government’s budget shortfall was growing.
It started in May, when the state recorded its first of what is now nine consecutive monthly shortfalls. The shortfall ranks among the state’s worst budget crises of the past 40 years.
And [...]
Continuing a trend begun by his predecessors, Mayor Nutter has increased spending citywide on employees who answer directly to him, an Inquirer analysis of payroll records has found.
Even following a series of January cuts in salaries and personnel, 988 non-civil service employees remain in city government. Cumulatively, they are paid [...]
A report released Thursday says Pennsylvania doesn’t offer incentive pay to keep good teachers, but several Allegheny County school districts say money isn’t necessarily an issue.
Pennsylvania’s policies to identify and keep good teachers need to be reviewed, the National Council of Teacher Quality concluded in its annual report on retention [...]
Candidates for six statewide judicial seats will gather before the Women’s Caucus of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in Harrisburg today, one day before the state party committee decides on endorsements for the May primary.
The seats — one on the Supreme Court, three on Superior Court and two on Commonwealth Court [...]
The number of Pennsylvania residents without health insurance has increased to more than 1 million, according to a state Insurance Department survey released Thursday.
The debate over how to reverse the trend has already created a deep divide between Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration and Republicans who control the state Senate. [...]
I am disturbed by the second-to-last paragraph of the article below? Will Pennsylvania ever be free of the shadow cast by the 1980s/1990s high court?
from his judicial and administrative duties Wednesday following an announcement he and a colleague have been charged with accepting payments from the owners of [...]
In a spirit of bi-partisanship, Rep Kanjorski voted with ALL Pennsyvania Republicans against HR 1, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The official House roll call vote can be found here:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll046.xml#N
[...]The two legislators who have guided the state’s student aid agency during a rough spot in its history want to remain in their board leadership roles for another year.
Rep. William Adolph, R-Delaware, will be nominated at the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency’s board meeting on Thursday to serve as its [...]
PennDOT estimates it would receive $1.25 billion for highway and bridge projects under a federal economic stimulus proposal and would not have to spend all of the money this year, state Transportation Secretary Al Biehler said Tuesday.
The projected windfall is $250 million less than anticipated but would give PennDOT freedom [...]
The state work force might be reduced by 2,000 employees in an effort to balance a worsening budget crisis, Gov. Ed Rendell’s spokesman said Tuesday.
Through layoffs and attrition, Rendell is expected to announce a reduction of 1,000 to 2,000 state workers next Wednesday when he addresses the Legislature with his [...]
Pennsylvania labor officials say jobless residents can now receive as much as 33 weeks of federal emergency unemployment compensation after their state benefits run out.
The maximum for the federal benefits was previously 20 weeks, according to Associated Press.
Labor and Industry Department spokesman David Smith said Tuesday the benefits are being [...]
The executive director of the Senate Democratic Appropriations Committee testified yesterday at former state Sen. Vince Fumo’s federal corruption trial that it was not unusual for senators to have staff do campaign work on Senate time.
Paul Dlugolecki, as a defense witness for Fumo, was responding to a question by Assistant [...]
The dark cloud over Luzerne County’s courthouse grew darker Monday as two judges agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and spend more than seven years in federal prison.
President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Judge Michael Conahan are named in a 22-page indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the [...]
The defense team in former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo’s corruption trial called its first witness yesterday, former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor, who testified that he had fired one of Fumo’s chief accusers because the man was “sneaky.”
Castor, who was district attorney before being elected county [...]
Homicide and attempted-homicide investigations are no longer a concern for Sunbury’s 12-member police department.
State police will now investigate those crimes in the city of just under 10,000 in Northumberland County. As of Jan. 1, the Sunbury City Council decided, the state police have more resources to handle these investigations, and [...]
Though Philadelphia’s public library services recently landed on the chopping block, the city’s public school students have watched school library services dwindle for years.
Today, more than half of the district’s 281 schools have no library staff. In one region, it’s up to 78 percent.
It’s a worsening problem.
At one point, every [...]
Now that prosecutors have spent 14 weeks battering former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo with 77 witnesses and 1,300 exhibits, the defense is poised to present his side.
After an erratic heartbeat Thursday sent Fumo to the hospital for a couple of days, the federal corruption trial is scheduled to resume [...]
One major addition to Pennsylvania’s landscape this year will be another nearly 10,000 slot machines — a potential bright spot amid gloomy state revenue collections.
But the impact of increased slots revenue might be impossible to recognize in the red ink of government budgets.
Last year, Pennsylvania distributed about $660 million to [...]
Two more City Council members agreed last week to take voluntary pay cuts, after a Daily News editorial slammed members who had not made salary reductions and printed their photos in a “rouge’s gallery.”
W. Wilson Goode Jr. and Joan Krajewski decided to take the 5 percent reductions. They join Council [...]
As the mayoral race in Scranton looms on the horizon, the Lackawanna County Republican Committee is talking to three potential candidates to take on incumbent mayor Chris Doherty, according to committee chairman Paul Catalano.
With his large “war chest,” the two-term Doherty will be prepared to spend a lot of money, [...]
Federal agents on Thursday raided the offices of a Pennsylvania government contractor with close ties to Rep. John P. Murtha, chairman of the powerful Defense panel on the House Appropriations Committee.
Agents from the FBI, IRS and Defense Criminal Investigative Service searched the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense [...]
Former Lehigh Valley Congressman Pat Toomey has decided against a repeat run for Senate in 2010, turning instead toward a possible bid for governor as he reaches out to Republicans statewide to assess his potential candidacy next year.
Toomey, president of the anti-tax group The Club for Growth, is scheduled [...]
Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he would not propose any increases in the state’s sales or personal income taxes in the next fiscal year’s budget, despite a worsening financial outlook for Pennsylvania.
His promise to hold the line on such broad-based taxes comes as his administration is planning painful spending [...]
In this political and economic climate, traveling to the sunny U.S. Virgin Islands in December for a government convention and billing the taxpayers for the trip isn’t the shrewdest of public-relations moves.
State Rep. James Roebuck has come to realize that.
The Philadelphia Democrat this week rethought his decision to have [...]
Associated Press:
Pennsylvania’s job losses reached an 18-year high last year and the statewide unemployment rate soared to its highest level since March 1994, state officials said Thursday.
In 2008, Pennsylvania lost 76,000 jobs _ more than 1 percent of the state’s work force at the beginning of the year. [...]
Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett started a second four-year term after taking the oath of office Tuesday.
Corbett’s was the third swearing-in, following ceremonies for Auditor General Jack Wagner and Treasurer Rob McCord.
Corbett isn’t giving any hints about the next step in his office’s investigation into the alleged illegal use of [...]
Rosemarie Greco, a close ally of Gov. Rendell, is mulling whether to accept an open seat on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.
Greco, 62, a former school board member and banking executive, confirmed yesterday that Rendell had asked her to serve on the five-member panel. She stepped down as the governor’s [...]
Amid signs that Pennsylvania’s insurance commissioner is laying out a course for Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Inc. to follow as they pursue their proposed and controversial merger, members of the boards of the two insurers are meeting today.
Even though by law an official decision cannot be rendered until Tuesday, [...]
Rep. Patrick Murphy was at an event Monday evening with Colin Powell, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, but he declined invitations to an afterparty.
More important to him was his appearance at a downtown hotel for Pennsylvania’s “Yes We Did” celebration, where anyone who paid $150 could rub elbows with Gov. [...]
While all eyes are on the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania will have a lower profile inauguration day of its own.
Tom Corbett, the only Republican victorious in a statewide contest in November, will be sworn in Tuesday for a second term as state attorney general.
Auditor General Jack Wagner, a [...]
The head of a financial company the FBI raided two years ago in an ongoing investigation into “pay-to-play” practices donated more than $400,000 to state officials and political committees, and is accused in two lawsuits of colluding with bankers on municipal bond deals.The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission paid the Investment Management [...]
Pennsylvania lawmakers in fewer than six months will confront a $4 billion to $5 billion budget deficit, according to House Appropriations Committee staff. The deficit in the 2008-09 budget is about $2 billion and roughly an equal amount is projected for 2009-10, said Johnna Pro, spokeswoman for committee Chairman Dwight [...]
The State System of Higher Education has approved controversial changes in teacher certification that some critics fear will discourage students from becoming middle-school teachers.The system’s Board of Governors has approved guidelines developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education that establish new certifications of teachers for grades pre-K through 4 and [...]
With Pennsylvania facing a $1.9 billion deficit and a state government hiring freeze supposedly in place, Gov. Ed Rendell on Thursday angrily defended giving a $95,000 job to a defeated Democratic state legislator.Former Rep. Dan Surra, a low-rung state House leader who represented part of Clearfield and Elk counties, was [...]
Mayor Nutter is expected to announce today that the city – fresh off $1 billion in painful cuts – must find a way to trim another $1 billion from its five-year spending plan or find a way to increase revenue, according to several sources familiar with the city’s fiscal [...]
In the nearly two months since Eric Holder was picked by Barack Obama to serve as the nation’s top lawyer, Sen. Arlen Specter has ratcheted up his criticism of the attorney general nominee.But with Holder’s confirmation hearings beginning today, attention will quickly turn from Specter’s words to his actions, [...]
Republican state lawmakers unhappy with their representative on the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board are lobbying for the appointment of the former state police deputy commissioner whose criticism of the board’s background investigation of Mount Airy Casino Resort owner Louis DeNaples led to calls for gaming reform.Retired Lt. Col. Ralph [...]
Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo will soon make much more sitting in a courtroom defending himself against federal corruption charges than he did as a legislator.State pension officials recently authorized Fumo’s request to begin collecting $8,421.27 monthly in retirement benefits.
The 65-year-old Philadelphia Democrat chose to collect the monthly checks [...]
When is a hiring freeze not a hiring freeze?When you are a deposed state representative who needs a job and you know the governor really well.
Gov. Rendell made an exception this week to his administration’s four-month-old hiring freeze to create a $95,002-a-year bureaucratic post and fill it with a [...]
Well, can’t say I agree with Bernie about Morganelli… he seems to be the weakest link of this group.
From time to time, there’s a crop of lawyers who represent the very best in that profession. The harvest that produced John Morganelli (Northampton County DA), Jay Leeson (Bethlehem City Council), [...]
He is, he isn’t – he probably is.Former state Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf has filed paperwork to create a campaign committee to begin raising money for an expected bid for governor in 2010.
Although Wolf, a Democrat, has not formally announced his candidacy for the state’s top job, he is [...]
Prosecutors in the trial of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo abruptly abandoned plans to call a key witness yesterday after learning that he had sent thousands of e-mails to Fumo and others.Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Zauzmer said the witness, Leonard P. Luchko, who had been a [...]
City Councilman Jack Kelly secretly recorded a telephone conversation with his chief of staff and wore a body wire to lunch with a developer as part of an FBI investigation into alleged bribery of his office, according to FBI documents.It is unclear when Kelly began cooperating with the FBI, [...]
On January 12, the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Green Party again asked the State Elections Department why it has not tallied any write-in votes for Cynthia McKinney for president. The party had submitted a list of presidential elector candidates pledged to Cynthia McKinney before the election, and asked for a [...]
Election Day 2010 seems a long a way off, but the gubernatorial primary is just a mere 17 months away and some of the leading Democratic contenders are already hitting the campaign trail.Former Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf, Allegheny County executive Dan Onorato and Lehigh County executive Don Cunningham appeared together [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell’s connection to a central figure in a New Mexico “pay-to-play” investigation has prompted some Pennsylvania lawmakers to renew a push for legislation prohibiting campaign contributors from receiving state contracts.“I believe it’ll be one of the top priorities for our caucus,” said Senate Majority Whip Jane Orie, R-McCandless. [...]
When Pennsylvania’s system of 14 state-owned universities was in its infancy, its top executives took home relatively modest paychecks.For years, the State System of Higher Education took pains to ensure that no university president was paid more than the governor.
Today, the picture is drastically different.
The lowest-paid president, Maravene Loeschke of [...]
The state’s 11 cyber charter schools — online, at-home alternatives to traditional public schools — are the latest victims of the recession. Facing the threat of layoffs or mortgage foreclosures, some parents are sending their children back to brick-and-mortar public schools because a stay-at-home spouse had to get a job, [...]
A record number of families are getting help paying their home heating bills this winter, Pennsylvania welfare officials say.Nearly 331,000 low-income families have received cash grants from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program since the state began accepting applications Nov. 3, according to Public Welfare Secretary Estelle Richman. That’s [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell has begun the new year with a push to get the state Senate to confirm five nominees to fill out his 25-member Cabinet.The Democratic governor asked lawmakers this week to endorse his picks to head the state departments of Aging, Environmental Protection, Health, Revenue, and Labor and [...]
Right after news broke that former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo was under FBI investigation, the embattled politician went on a public-relations offensive.Fumo declared he had not received any benefit from the $17 million in charitable donations that he extracted from Peco Energy Co. In fact, Fumo told a radio [...]
Frustrated by delays and roadblocks from the Nutter administration, investors in the SugarHouse Casino asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday to appoint a special master to settle any current or future disputes with the city.Licensed a year ago by the state, the project has stalled, due largely to difficulties getting [...]
Now, one year to the day after the open house that Yates found “inspiring,” what has changed is his perspective on Nutter and on the city’s direction.“We’re not progressing,” said Yates, 31, an electronics technician who lives in the city’s Olney section. “I had these big expectations, and [...]
MSNBC host Chris Matthews told his staff yesterday that he had decided not to run in next year’s U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, ending months of speculation.During a late afternoon meeting before his daily Hardball show aired, Matthews told his team of producers that he would not seek the [...]
A report released on Tuesday indicates Pennsylvania is at risk of not giving military personnel overseas enough time to vote. The Pew Center on the States report found that a third of the states don’t provide enough time to vote, two others join Pennsylvania at being at risk of this, [...]
Pennsylvania’s U.S. House delegation kicked off the 111th Congress on Tuesday with fewer Republicans than at any point since the Great Depression, a startling fall for the party that has left it without a single Pennsylvania member on the House’s two most powerful panels.The GOP delegation’s ranks dropped to seven [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell was not aware the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency awarded a no-bid contract in 2003 to a California company headed by a member of his transition team for the Department of Revenue, his spokesman said Tuesday.Since then, CDR Financial Products has collected nearly $600,000 as a financial adviser [...]
People spent nearly $1.55 billion on Pennsylvania lottery games between July and December, up 1 percent from the same time last year, lottery spokeswoman Stephanie Weyant said.That makes the Pennsylvania Lottery one of only 11 nationwide to post a sales increase. Traditional lottery sales across the country fell $215 million, [...]
Rep. Keith McCall, D-Carbon, was elected speaker of the house on a 104-99 party-line vote yesterday.McCall, 49, has been a member of the House since 1982, when he succeeded his late father, Thomas, in the northeastern Pennsylvania district.
McCall defeated Republican Leader Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, who emerged from a morning caucus [...]
Hardballer Chris Matthews returned from a two-week vacation in Jamaica last night and has still not closed the door on a run for U.S. Senate, his brother said today in an interview.Jim Matthews said he spoke with his brother Saturday and was given no word on whether Matthews planned [...]
Two hundred and fifty-two men and women, from Erie to Easton and points in between, will gather here today, take the oath of office as legislators, and immediately confront the reality that the state is sinking deeper into a fiscal quagmire.So bad is the economic outlook that many believe [...]
After extracting $17 million in donations from Peco Energy, former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo raised the ante with Verizon Pennsylvania, demanding more than $50 million in contributions to settle a legal dispute, Verizon’s former president testified yesterday.Fumo wanted Verizon to deposit $10 million in his family-owned bank. [...]
With President-elect Barack Obama mulling a proposed economic stimulus package in the hundreds of billions of dollars, the area’s representatives in Congress are weighing in with ideas of what the package should include.U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski each wrote letters to the leaders of their [...]
Gov. Ed Rendell on Sunday asked the Legislature to end parole for repeat violent offenders and said the state would expand its supervision of such offenders on parole.The request occurred a day after Rendell said he received the criminal history on a man who had been paroled three times before [...]
